Beauty and the Drunk
by TonksontheTardis
Summary: AU- Effie Trinket is the bartender at The District, a little hole-in-the-wall bar shoved into a back alleyway. One of her patrons, a drunk named Haymitch, intrigues her with his gruff demeanor and his dark past.  I stink at summaries.
1. Chapter 1

Hayffie- AU

"Can I have another drink?" the man slumped over on the bar asks the bartender in a slurred voice. The bartender, a petite woman with hot pink hair and matching stilettos gives him a dirty look.

"No, you're too drunk already. I'm cutting you off. And get your head off of that counter, it's new and it's mahogany." She snaps at him in a high-pitched, heavily-accented voice. In his drunken stupor, he can't place the accent, but it does sound vaguely familiar.

The next night, the drunk man comes into the bar and sits himself down at the mahogany counter again. The bartender turns around and lets out a deep sigh when she sees him. He orders a drink and she prepares it behind the counter.

"So, what's your name?" she asks in a cheery attempt to make conversation.

"Haymitch." He grumbles, clearly not wanting to say anything else.

"I'm Effie. Trinket." She smiles at him. She doesn't want to talk to him, but it's part of the job as bartender. Make conversation with everyone, no matter how sleazy or drunk. She looks in a mirror and fixes her neon hair, so as not to have to speak with Haymitch again. By the time she turns around, he is already finished with his first drink. He gives her a look and she rolls her eyes and slides anther glass to him across the countertop.

The bar is called The District and it's one of those little hole-in-the-wall bars that you see crammed in the back of little alleyways. Effie, head bartender and owner, was entirely in charge of it; she micromanaged every aspect of it, from the entertainment to the drinks themselves. She did quite well for herself down here in this shack of a bar, since it was a local favorite and she had her regulars that came every night.

Haymitch seems vaguely familiar to her, but she can't place him for anything. She leans up against the countertop at the end of the bar and watches him. He speaks to no one, only nursing his drink in silence. Couples chat and kiss all around him, friends babble drunken nonsense, but he'll have none of it. He only drinks in silence.

He comes to her bar every night now, sits on the same battered barstool, and drinks the same drink until Effie takes it upon herself to cut him off. He always gets mad at her when she refuses to serve him another drink, insisting that he'll pay her six times more than the usual cost. She never caves to him, partly because she doesn't want him to pass out on the floor, and partially because she has an odd soft spot for this strange, drunken man. She can't even explain it to herself, but something about him makes her heart beat slightly louder and her cheeks get slightly flushed.

One night, she finally has enough and sets out to have a conversation with him.

"So, Haymitch," she chirps happily, "what brings you to my bar every night?" It takes him a minute to register that she's talking to him, his senses slowed thanks to the alcohol.

"Dunno. Good liquor." He mutters, clearly desiring to be alone. Effie nods, not sure what to say to this strange man. In all her years of bartending, she's never met anyone like him. Every patron she had ever had was usually happy to talk to her after some drinks and a little prompting on her part.

"Have I seen you somewhere before?" She asks him, since it's been bugging her in the back of her mind since she's seen him.

"Used to be on TV. Baseball player." Suddenly, it clicks in her head. A date had taken her to some baseball game a long time ago and she must have recognized him from then, since that was the only exposure she had ever had to baseball. Her date had been hugely into the statistics part of baseball, so she had decided to try and learn all about the players and their statistics, even though she just wanted to make out in the bleachers. She vaguely remembered memorizing a Haymitch's stats back then.

"Why'd you quit?" she asks innocently, but he acts like she asked him the most offensive question in the world. He slams his glass on the countertop and stand up to look her square in the eyes.

"That's a cruel joke, Princess. Don't act like you don't fucking know." He slurs, turns sharply and stumbles out of the bar. An awkward silence settles over the room as everyone gives Effie a strange look, almost like she did something to offend him. Confused, she takes her iPhone out of her pocket and looks up "Haymitch baseball". The results are plentiful. She clicks on the first link, which takes her to an old newspaper article from two years ago. The headline reads,

"Star Baseball Player Kills Rival: Accident, or Maniacal Plot?" Effie raises one eyebrow warily as she scrolls through the article. It basically says that Haymitch Abernathy (age 30) let go of his bat when he was swinging and it hit his rival pitcher, Moss Lee (age 26), in the head, killing him on contact. The article says that Haymitch claimed innocence, but it insinuates that he did it on purpose. He went to court and was cleared of all charges, but his name was forever soiled and he retired early.

Effie's eyes grow wide as she finished the article, not sure what to think.


	2. Chapter 2

Hayffie Chapter Two

**Disclaimer- I do not own the Hunger Games (obviously). Please don't sue me. That would not be fun for either of us. **

**Songs I listened to while writing: High Twilight, Silly Love Songs, Love Like Whoa, The Catalyst, Jar of Hearts, King of Anything, Better Than Revenge, & Innocent (I take a long time to write and I just put my iPod on shuffle. I find that my writing changes with whatever music I'm listening to, so I decided to just put these here and see if there's a connection to what I wrote.) **

The next night, Haymitch is back, sitting in his usual seat at the bar. Effie gives him a long, curious look, but he either chooses to ignore her, or he's too drunk to care. He had already been drunk when he walked in the bar tonight; Effie wasn't entirely sure why he was here. He probably wouldn't even remember having come here when he woke up with a wicked hangover tomorrow. She, in all her years as a bartender, had never seen such a slovenly mess of a man. He had horrible hygiene, yellow teeth and all. He was repulsive, but Effie couldn't seem to keep herself away from him.

She walks over to stand in front of him, hands on her hips, and gives him a criticizing look. It takes him a few seconds to register who is staring at him, but he looks up eventually and rolls his eyes when he recognizes the petite woman giving him a shaming look.

"What?" he asks gruffly, hoping she'll go away soon. Her hair is giving him a headache.

"I'm sorry about last night. Really. I had no idea." Effie tilts her head slightly and bites her lip, waiting to see how he'll respond.

"It's fine." He mumbles, his head drooping from the large quantities of alcohol in his system. Effie gives him another admonishing look. Her emerald green eyes meet his crystal blue and, for a split second, it feels like the world stopped. Effie tears her eyes away first, while Haymitch's continue to linger on her.

In his eyes, she saw a fire and a passion dissimilar to anything she had ever seen. Really looking at him properly now, she sees remains of a once-handsome young man. The alcohol and god-know-what-else has ruined this once handsome man, now gone to seed.

In her eyes, he sees an attitude as big as those heels she's so fond of wearing. He gives her a hazy once-over, noticing the smooth curves beneath the fabric of her tight-fitting neon green blouse and matching skirt. There's something in the way she talks, the way she walks that makes him feel like a lecherous old man, thinking this young woman is so attractive. He knows that the age difference between them can't be too large, but her spark and vivacity for life greatly **outmatches** his. She is young and full of life, his life is over. He bangs his fist on the counter, starling the pretty bartender whose name he doesn't want or care to remember and demands a drink. She must pity him, because she pours a small amount of liquor for him. He drinks it down and leaves in a boozy haze.

Hopefully he'll have forgotten about all of this by the next morning.

Effie had poured him that other drink without thinking. She was too engrossed in imagining what he used to be like as a young man, right in the prime of his life, before he went to seed. She regretted it the second she handed him the glass as a peculiar look flashed in his eyes. He had left right after that. This was one of those times that she wished she could read minds. If only she could know what he was thinking. It would make everything so much easier.

The next morning, Effie woke up to an early-morning phone call from her parents and Haymitch woke up next to the porcelain toilet in his penthouse apartment.

Effie was shocked to pick up the phone and hear her mother's voice on the other line. Her parenta had barely spoken to her after she had traded the wealthy neighborhood she had grown up in for the night-life business. She hadn't particularly wanted to work at The District, but she would have given up all of the riches in the world, just to get rid of her overbearing parents. They wanted to control every single part of her life. If everything went according to their plan, she was to go to a good college, become a lawyer, marry a doctor, and have a perfect, atypical suburban family consisting of 2.5 children and probably drive an SUV.

Instead, she dyed her hair lime green and ran away from her home at age 17. Her parents didn't care. They had her other siblings and Effie was always an embarrassment anyway. She was close enough to 18 to get by. Ten years later, here she was, working in the same sleazy bar and doing absolutely nothing with her life, only with hot pink hair now. Sure, she liked running The District (especially after the previous owner had given it to her) but she would rather be traveling the world, going to new places and meeting new people, not stuck in The District. She still hoped to do that someday, after she saved up enough money to leave.

For Haymitch, the previous night was a blur of alcohol and neon green. He remembered almost nothing after the 3rd drink at The Catnip, except that he had stumbled down the dirt road to The District. He distinctly remembered being attracted to something, but couldn't remember who it was for his life. He remembered the color neon green was significant in some way, but his head was too foggy to even think straight. He vomited in the toilet yet another time and then stood up and looked in the mirror. His dark, curly hair was long, scraggly, and greasy. His beard was more than just stubble now and his clothes were stained with god-knows-what. He showered and shaved, which improved things drastically. He wasn't sure why he was doing all of this; he had never cared before, but he figured that maybe if he saw this mystery woman again, she would pay attention to him if he was somewhat clean.

By the time night rolled around, Effie was working in the bar again and Haymitch had abandoned his attempts to stay clean. She wasn't totally focused on her job, which was extremely unusual for the perfectionist. She kept expecting Haymitch to walk inside at any second.

Haymitch was down at The Catnip, looking for the mystery woman and getting drunk all over again in the process. His once-pressed suit was crumpled and stained somehow and his once-combed hair was lanky and tangled again. He was a mess, but he was too drunk to care.

None of the women in The Catnip struck a chord with him, so he decided to reenact what he did last night and stumbled drunkenly to The District.

**Author Notes:**

**Oh, a cliffhanger! ;) Fun stuff. Please Read&Review. Reviews are like poptarts to me. I need them to live. **


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